It's the Fear
by adi-rotynd
Summary: Will loves Kurt, the way he does all his kids, but until recently he didn't like him very much.


**Spoilers:** Up to 2.10.  
**Warnings:** Mentions bullying.  
**Disclaimer:** RIB and FOX own everything ever.  
**Beta because omg I have one now: **rdm_ation on LJ.

Enjoy, and by all means review should it strike your fancy, my best beloveds.~

* * *

"_It's the fear that's the worst," Kurt says, and Will agrees with exactly the first half of that sentence._

Will never thinks about this, but he knows – deep down – why it is that before Karofsky, he didn't much like Kurt.

That isn't to say that he hadn't loved Kurt. He loves all of his kids, and he would have taken a bullet for Kurt from the day he sang "Mr. Cellophane" in the auditorium, face set and disdainful, already on his third outfit of the day. He just wouldn't have gone out of his way to have a conversation with the kid, either.

Will needs to be liked, he needs to be looked up to, he needs to be _needed_. And the kids that he likes, the ones he does goes out of his way for, are the ones who need him. The group, as a whole, does need him. The kids need someone to pay attention to them, to offer them somewhere they're valued, rather than mocked, for the best things about them. Finn and Rachel need to be believed in as badly as he does, and he can give them that, all of that.

Kurt, though, has always baffled him. He's a strong part of the group, a good part, and he needs the same things Mercedes or Tina or Mike does, Will's sure. But Kurt isn't – and Will knows how this would sound, so mostly he doesn't think it – Kurt isn't grateful the way they are.

Will has never blamed Kurt for this. He realizes that he's up against a strange combination of heavy competition (Burt Hummel) and a complete lack of competition (Kurt is a deliberately self-sufficient kid). He understands it, he just doesn't like it – and, by extension, doesn't like Kurt. Or he didn't, before. Now he'll drive two hours each way in December, armed with only a question he could have asked over the phone, just to see how Kurt's doing.

Will is genuinely sorry that things got so bad for Kurt, but he's glad he was there when they did.

* * *

"Mr. Schuester?" Kurt is standing in the doorway of his office, one hand still touching the door itself from his halfhearted knock. Kurt is probably the only kid he knows who would knock on an open door, Will muses. Well, maybe Mike Chang. Frankly, even Kurt usually wouldn't bother; he normally acts like he owns whichever room he happens to be in. He's been different, though, lately.

"Come on in, Kurt," he says, closing the folder on Brittany's test with a sigh of relief. He isn't going to _fail_ her, that would just be cruel, but it's getting really difficult to figure out how to justify giving a D to a girl who can't spell the word "cat" in English, let alone Spanish. And who insists on writing about cats even though they weren't a topic on the exam. "What's up?"

"I've been considering songs for my dad's first dance with Carole," Kurt says, brisk and efficient again. He slaps a handful of sheet music onto the table; Will suspects it may not have been legally obtained but doesn't ask. Kids today with their iTunes and downloading… "I was wondering if you would sing this at the wedding. My dad says he wants Bublé, and it's one of the few things he can actually dance to, besides being appropriately steamy for a couples' dance but not overtly enough to make Finn run screaming from the room…"

Will looks up from the music to "Sway," holding a hand up to stop him. "It's a perfect song, I agree, and I'd be honored to sing it… but wouldn't you like to sing it yourself? Or any of you kids? I know how much solos mean to you guys, especially ones in front of an audience."

"This isn't about solos," Kurt says. "This is about the perfect, although cost-effective, wedding. And you have the best voice and stage presence for this song." He hesitates, and Will, who is flattered and definitely sold on the idea, waits rather than saying so. "It would mean a lot to Finn," Kurt finally adds. "And to me. If you would sing at the wedding."

"In that case, I'd love to," Will says over the sudden lump in his throat.

"Good." Kurt flips open his binder, which is getting to be the size of a large cat, and balances it on his hip while he checks something off. "That's taken care of, then. Now I just need to force Santana to get fitted for her dress and figure out what to do with the corpses of the doves." He smiles and turns to leave, then glances over his shoulder to add, "Thanks, Mr. Schue," with entirely too much sincerity for it to be about a song.

* * *

The first time Will tried to talk to Kurt about the bullying, Kurt called him part of the problem. Part of _both_ problems. He didn't do enough to stand up for his kids, and he didn't do enough to challenge them in glee club – essentially, Kurt told him he was a cog in McKinley's machine, that he was indifferent and uninterested and not much of a teacher, that he wasn't… different.

Then things got really bad, and Will was there. And now –

"Someone special?" he asks.

"No, he's just a friend," Kurt sighs. "But on the upside I'm in love with him and he's actually gay. Call that progress." He asks if Will is looking into "teaching at a place pencils aren't primarily used as weapons" and Will thinks, _There._ He's someone Kurt can talk to about being in love with a boy, joke with about past crushes on straight boys, a teacher too good for McKinley, the same way all his kids are. Special. Different.

* * *

"You're sure your dad won't mind?" Will asks as Kurt leads the way toward the grand – well, grander than the rest, which wasn't saying all that much – entrance of the mall. He marvels at the boy's self-control; either that or his uncannily constant internal temperature. Will is hunched in on himself against the wind as they approach the steps and he's about two seconds from blowing on his hands, even in their gloves. Kurt marches on, head and shoulders back, and doesn't seem to notice the fact that it's approaching zero degrees. "I mean," Will continues, "I don't want to make you late."

"I told him I had to go shopping," Kurt explains. "The last time he tried to interfere with a shopping spree I was thirteen years old. Seriously, the _last_ time." He smiles wryly, as though they're sharing a joke. Will smiles back, realizing that they are. He wonders if Kurt is a tantrum kid or if he prefers passive aggression. He wonders, too, which his kid would have used if she had been real, and puts a hand on Kurt's back for balance.

Kurt holds the door for Will, and possibly kicks someone who tries to get in their way in the near-Christmas rush. "Anyway, I consider being late for dinner a fair trade for keeping you alive. Coach Sylvester would probably skin you alive if your gift wasn't up to snuff."

"I appreciate your lifesaving efforts," Will says, trying to repay the door favor by keeping himself between Kurt and some of the more aggressive shoppers. He gets jostled a lot, and honestly it looks like Kurt, who has an uncanny ability to become all elbows and steel-toed military boots while looking completely unruffled, would fare a lot better with them than he would. Still, he is the adult, so he keeps trying. "You're really going above and beyond, here, Kurt. I would have been happy with a description or an eBay link."

"Oh, Mr. Schuester," Kurt sighs. "No wonder you needed help. Here." He steers Will into a huge store dedicated to sports clothing. There are animal heads stuffed and mounted on the walls, and Kurt wrinkles his nose at a plastic-perfect moose on the way to the cavernous women's section. "Ex_cuse_ me," he adds sweetly to a huge man in plaid who is fighting with a small but tenacious woman over a suede jacket. Kurt engages his elbow some more to clear their way. Will wonders vaguely if he, as the adult accompanying the offending minor, will be made to pay for the man's new spleen.

"Your problem," Kurt continues, neatly sidestepping a frazzled father with two teenagers on cell phones sorting through the winter coats, "is that you know you're bad at Christmas shopping, so you've just given up on understanding the artistry involved. My dad is the same way." He grabs Will's arm, swinging him into a defensible nook between a rack of track suits and, unfortunately, the rearing corpse of a bear. It smells of mothballs, and Will tries not to think about it. "For future reference, you can't order someone their Christmas gift online mere days before Christmas. The mail is backed up and it would be late, and if the someone in question is Sue Sylvester, you would end up walking to Texas to get the present yourself in order to appease her." He eyes Will, judgmentally but not unkindly, mouth curving into a smile. "Also I've tried describing the clothes I mean to people before, and unless the person is Mercedes, it just doesn't work out. I seriously doubt you would have understood a word I said."

"Fair points," Will concedes. He thinks the bear might have just groped him. For something so obviously dead, it looks oddly alive. "Oh my God, it has friends," he mutters, noticing another hulking specimen across the store.

"Hideous, aren't they?" Kurt pulls a face at one. "I used to hate coming here when I was little. I thought one of them would fall and eat me, like the crocodile in that movie where Robin Williams wears tights." He dismisses another tracksuit. "Now I just hate coming here because the décor is tasteless and uninspired –" He cuts himself off with a squeal of delight and produces one specific tracksuit with a flourish. "This. This is perfect. With her complexion, in winter…" he hands the suit over to Will.

"But it's…" Will looks around at the store. "It's one of Sue's. This is the kind she wears. Does she shop here?"

"I think there's a clause in her contract stating that all stores within a ten-mile radius of her place of employment have to carry this brand."

Will turns back to the suit, which is perfect, right down to the fur-lined hood. "God, Kurt, this is fantastic. You're a lifesaver."

"I accept both flowers and candy as payment," Kurt says, smiling too widely, basking in his appreciation the way kids do with adults they like – the way Finn or Rachel would at a compliment from Will. "I mean, Finn would probably eat the candy, but I'd appreciate the thought."

"I'll buy you a florist shop for this. Do you know how many hair jokes you've saved me from?"

He lets Kurt lead the way to the checkout counter, elbows and all.

* * *

This sounds bad, but Will had never wondered why Kurt was so often standing against a locker when he saw him in the hallways. And then - he thought it was Finn. He was helping some girls with the Spanish homework he'd assigned the day before yesterday and half-saw, from the corner of his eye, someone large and wearing the letter jacket standing very close to Kurt's locker. Of course he assumed it was Finn, he assures himself later; the jock wasn't doing anything. They were having a conversation. About the wedding, he thought. And at least he'd thought to keep half an eye out, in case anything happened.

Then the jock walked away, and wasn't Finn, and _Kurt_… Kurt fell apart.

And Will was there for it.

This wasn't like when Mr. Hummel had a heart attack; Kurt's fear then had been too all-consuming to allow for comfort. He'd brushed Will and Emma off with hardly a glance. This was something Kurt wanted help with. Will knows that it could have been anyone standing there in that moment, with Kurt terrified and at his most vulnerable; it's not like Kurt came to him, chose him for anything. Happenstance is all it was. Well, he'll take happenstance.

He hated it while it was happening, of course he did. Kurt sailed through everything this school could throw at him with a quip and, at worst, a tired look or some honest anger; to have that boy curl into Will's hand on his shoulder like it was the only thing in the world keeping him safe – that wasn't _fun_.

It just – wasn't awful, either. Will hates that it happened, but he can't hate that he was the one there when it did.

The looks in Sue's (temporary) office, wordless pleas for help heavy with the implicit belief, finally, that Will was on Kurt's side and would do anything he could to help, sealed it. Anything the teary eyes and blindly trusting nod in the hallway hadn't covered, that is.

Over the next few days, Kurt's sarcasm became charming. Will still isn't a fan of his criticism, but can't remember a time he was entirely wrong. Of course Kurt is condescending and cutting; he's being defensive. He has to be, all the time, if this is what he deals with every day. Will found himself liking Kurt. And Kurt, Kurt likes _him_ now. Will was there when he needed someone, and some unconscious switch was flipped. Kurt trusts him now, looks up to him, knows that Will is different.

Will can't help him, not really; and maybe he doesn't deserve this – not from Finn, not from Rachel, not from any of his kids and especially not from Kurt, not with the way he got it – but deserve it or not, he _needs_ it.


End file.
